Leo Burnett APAC Names Karen Ellis Global Creative Director for SK-II

Jarek Ziebinski, Chairman and CEO Leo Burnett Asia Pacific announced today, the appointment of award-winning creative director Karen Ellis as global creative director for SK-II, based out of Singapore.

“Karen’s outstanding body of work across fashion, luxury and beauty is truly one of a kind and a great fit for SK-II. With Karen on board, we are looking forward to bring about a transformation to the team not just at the global hub in Singapore, but across the world to create work that will further enhance SK-II as one of the leading luxury skincare brands, not just in Asia, but globally,” said Ziebinski.

Ellis is an award-winning specialist with 20 years experience in design and advertising exclusively for the fashion, luxury and beauty industries. She spent 10 years in New York creating numerous worldwide celebrity campaigns for global beauty brands including Estee Lauder, L¹Oreal, Avon and Revlon. This has given her in-depth experience in cosmetics, prestige fragrances, skin care and hair colour categories. She then took this expertise to London, where over the span of 10 years she lead creative on numerous prestige beauty brands but most notably on Hugo Boss global franchise of fragrances. As global creative director she has worked across Boss Black, Boss Orange and Hugo. She has won Gold Euro EFFIE for her work on Boss Orange Woman, a FWA (Favourite Website Awards) in Digital for “Always Night” (Boss Bottled Night), fragrance FIFI’s and numerous others. Most recently she has been working in Asia, grounding herself with Asian insights and working across markets (India-ASEAN) to create regional campaigns on beauty care.

Outside of her professional life, Ellis has a keen interest in art, fashion and photography. She has designed catalogs for Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg, collaborated with photographer Ruven Afanador on his book “Torero”. She also has been a featured beauty expert on celebrity advertising for the Financial Times, appeared in British Vogue and Korean W, and has delivered presentations at numerous international forums on both beauty and the portrayal of women in advertising.